The media room door swings open, and I look up into Simon’s face.
“Helena.” He studies my face, and I know what he must see. The blotchy skin, the sweat, panic in my eyes, the tremble of my lips. I lie well, but will fail terribly with a man who knows all my tells. His eyes drop to the duffel bag, then dart behind me. I don’t have to turn my head to picture the open cabinets, tapes missing, the mess there must be. “What’s in the bag?” He is good. There isn’t a shaky note in his voice, no crack in his composure. He looks at me, and isn’t even afraid. He should be afraid. He should be terrified. He should drop to his knees, full of explanations.
Instead, he steps closer, and I think of his confident stroll toward the young blonde.
I remember how much I used to love his height, his build, the strong lean muscles that line his body. He was so opposite of anything I’d ever expected to end up with. Beautiful where I was plain. Strong where I was weak. Now? Evil where I am innocent.
My plain weak innocence fails me when his fingers wrap around my bicep, his short fingernails digging painfully into the skin, and I whimper in pain as he yanks me forward. It’s the first time, in our years together, he has ever touched me like that. A week ago, I would have said he wasn’t capable of violence. A week ago, I would have said he wasn’t capable of rape. Now, the man before me is a stranger and I am suddenly very, very afraid.
“Let me go.” I’m against his chest, the duffel bag still clutched in my left hand, and I can’t release it, won’t release it.
“Oh Helena.” He looks down at me, with eyes that sag with disappointment. “Why?”
“Why?” I cough out the word, and spittle flies from my mouth, tiny white dots of saliva peppering the neck of his navy button-up shirt. So proper, my husband. Three-time Teacher of the Year. Loving Father of Bethany. Sickly-Sweet Rapist of Girls. I think of the blonde on the tape, her face as it changed from trust to fear. How many of them have there been? How many still exist? How many are here, in this town, in his classes? Is there a girl, right now, whose life he’s destroying?
“Yes, Helena.” He steps into the hall, and drags me forward, the loose skin of my arm pinched in his grasp, the look in his eyes hard and unfocused. “Why did you have to snoop?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I scramble along behind him, trying to stand, to get my feet underneath me. Snoop. Has he ever used that word before? My brain shuffles for a better adjective. I hadn’t been snooping. I had been doing research. I trip over a transition piece in the floor. “What are you doing?” I get one foot in place and try to plant my feet, to stop the forward movement. One of his hands comes loose and he grabs a handful of my hair. The pain, when he yanks, is blinding. I scream, and he drags me forward, his hand so tight on my bicep he must be leaving bruises. We come to the top of the stairs and he stops. “What are you doing?” I gasp, my neck bent, head almost sideways, in an attempt to relieve the pain against my scalp. If he jerks his hand to the right, my head will collide with the banister’s marble pillar. I close my eyes and try to think.
Simon is not a planner. He doesn’t think of details. He often forgets necessary items and skips instruction manual steps. He embarks on projects, then changes his mind. Right now, I can feel his brain working, the frantic search for a solution. The chances are high that he kills me right now—smashing my head against the banister, or tossing me down the stairs. He might make that snap decision without thinking through the consequences, without thinking of how he will dispose of me and his alibi and the hundred tiny details that murderers are responsible for.
“Where’s Bethany?” He turns his head toward her door, which stands open, the room still and quiet. Had Bethany been home, she would have heard him come in, squealed with happiness and thundered down the hall. That, I might have heard from the media room. That might have given me time to hide the evidence and return to my office. That might have saved me from whatever terrible plan he is about to come up with. But that would have put her in danger, and I’d rather die than have risked that.
He yanks at my hair and I can’t stop the sob in my throat. My knees hit the floor and part of the pain in my neck ceases. “Where is she?”
I can’t think of a lie quickly enough. “My mom has her.” If he goes to her, I can steal the tapes. I can steal the tapes, and go to the police, and they will hunt him down. He won’t hurt Bethany, and certainly not in the brief time it will take to catch him. And they will catch him. He isn’t smart enough to hide, and is stupid enough to think that he can.
“Did you tell your mother?” He leans down until our faces are just inches apart. He bites his top lip, and I can smell the coffee on his breath. Mr. Parks, Teacher of the Year.
He grabs my face, his thumb and forefinger straddling my mouth, digging painfully into my jaw. “Did you tell her?” He stares into my eyes, and I truly hate this man. It isn’t even about the videos. I think I’ve hated him for years. I used to think him stupid, but he isn’t. He’s evil. He’s manipulative. He’s a liar. He glares at me, and I don’t think there is anything to stop him, right now, from killing me. Has he ever loved me? I look into his eyes and try to find the man—the boy—I fell in love with. The one who had blushed when I called him sexy. The one who had cried when his mother died. The one who held my pregnant belly in his hand and beamed at me as if I was incredible. Somehow that man had filmed all of those tapes. He had whispered in children’s ears. He had pulled up their skirts. If I could kill him right now, if I wasn’t this pathetic, blubbering mess of pain and emotions—I would. I try to pull myself together, I try to look into his eyes and speak, but I can’t. He sees the truth before I even open my mouth to lie.
“You haven’t.” He releases my jaw. “You haven’t told anyone.” He reaches down, his hand rough as it passes over the front pocket of my pajama shirt, then crudely gropes the sides of my pants. There are no pockets on the drawstring pants, no place to put a phone, though I rarely carry mine around. He pinches the back of my thigh and I squeeze my eyes shut from the pain. I can’t cry. I need to pull myself together and reason with him.
“It wouldn’t matter if you had.” He straightens. “No one would believe you. Not without evidence, not with your history.” He reaches for my face and I wince, surprised when his fingers are almost gentle in their caress of my cheek. “My crazy girl,” he says. “That’s what they say.” Something in his eyes spark, as if he has an idea, and my stomach drops. “My depressed, crazy, girl.” He almost whispers the words.
“She’s bringing her back,” I blurt out the lie, my mind frantically trying to work through a scenario where he won’t, right now, hurt me. “They went to a movie. They’ll be back in an hour.” Would an hour be enough time to reason with him? To calm him down until the moment when I could run away? I let out a silent prayer of thanks that my mother never answers her phone, her hearing too eroded to pick up on the tinny chirp of the cell phone she often forgets to charge.
He steps down the first step and then the second, yanking at my hair, my hands scrambling to grip the spindles of the stairs before I am dragged down them.
“Get up.” He orders. “Walk.”
I get up. I get up and allow him to drag me forward, my bare feet stumbling on the steps, the kitchen slowly appearing through the haze of my tears. What is he doing? Where is he taking me? What is his plan?
We make it to the garage, the door shoved open, the concrete cold against my bare feet, and I understand when he reaches the utility room. The panic room. We had laughed when we saw the real estate listing. Who really needed a panic room? And in the garage? Why wouldn’t someone just get in their car and drive away? Also strange was what had been inside the so-called “Panic Room”. The hot water heater, washer and dryer. “It’s a utility room,” Simon had argued with the real estate agent. A utility room with an impossible-to-break-through door. It used to have a code. We used to be able to step into our utility room and arm the door. It would lock, and nothing could get in. Not fire, nor toxic gas, nor an army of home invaders.